Michael Lewis: United States Needs To Hit Bottom ‘Like An Addict’

Associated Speakers

America needs to hit bottom “like an addict” to rebound from its economic woes, according to Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Big Short and other books that have been optioned for movies.

“At every level of the society we have been willing to basically sacrifice our long term interests for short term interests,” Lewis told Bloomberg TV’s Tom Keene in an interview Wednesday. “It’s not sustainable and I think what happens is we have to hit bottom first, like an addict.”

And where is the bottom, according to Lewis, the darling of Wall Street traders, politicians and writers alike?

“It’s some level of unemployment, slow growth, what we’re going through now and people say ‘enough already I want the truth and I want our lives to be organized differently,’” Lewis said in the interview.

Lewis explored Americans’ relationship with debt through the prism of California cities that built themselves up during the housing bubble and are now on the verge of — or have already entered bankruptcy — for a recent article in Vantiy Fair.